Borrowed Time
by Darlingplease
Summary: Marcie loves to torment Nora, but she's going too far. So Nora wants to go a little too far with Scott, only he's not too keen on the word 'stop'. HIATUS
1. Chapter One

Summary: Marcie loves to torment Nora, but she's going too far. So Nora wants to go a little too far with Scott, only he's not too keen on the word 'stop'.

_Borrowed Time_

There it was in her stomach.

That same cold stone of worry that usually settled in her belly when she saw _him_ with _her_. It tightened her intestines, like a vine of poison ivy entwined too elaborately within her flesh.

Oh, God, she was going to be sick. How embarrassing.

_Please don't see_ _me_, she thought, _please don't turn and look at me._

"Jesus," Nora whispered under her breath as Patch, of course, turned his ebony gaze to meet hers. She rolled her eyes away from his, but the damage was done. He knew she was there. He always seemed to know, somehow.

And, like a domino effect, Marcie's pale gaze followed his. Why exactly did everything that got his attention have to be so incredibly interesting to her? It wasn't any of Marcie's freaking business anyways!

Nora tapped her foot in agitation. She couldn't help it, she glanced back. Marcie had a devilish smile on her face as she reached out and brushed her hand across the thick muscles of Patch's upper arm. She wasn't looking at Nora, but Nora knew that she was gauging her reaction.

"Scott?" Nora called, nervousness and blooming anger making her feel sick.

Scott was lining up the cue with the ball. "Mm?" he mumbled distractedly.

She glanced back at Patch and Marcie again. Patch was leaning languidly against the brick wall, his legs splayed and his arms crossed against his chest. Marcie was nestled between his legs, grasping the belt loops at his hips. He wasn't doing anything to stop her either!

She couldn't believe it. She couldn't believe _him._ What a lying, no good, fake, heart-breaking, unbelievably good-looking—

_Oh, yeah? _She thought at him_. Two can play that game._

The balls clicked together as Scott made his shot.

"Can we go somewhere?" Nora asked him.

"Ugh, Nora, you do know what's at stake here, right?" he moaned.

"No," she said, running a slightly shaking hand up his jean-covered hip and under his shirt, "I mean, can we _go_ somewhere."

There was no doubt in her mind that Patch would have seen that.

Scott's brows crinkled together. "Oh," he said. A semi-creepy grin metastasized across his face. "_Oh._"

Nora already kind of regretted asking. She didn't really plan on doing anything with him, maybe just a kiss here or there, shake Patch up a little bit. He deserved it, after all.

Scott was already dragging her through the smoky, undulating crowd, closer to where Marcie and Patch stood.

She tried her best not to meet his questioning eyes. _Don't look, don't look,_ she chanted. _If you look you'll lose your nerve._ They were close now, Scott's sweaty hand trapping her smaller one, only a few feet away from Patch.

The outside air was refreshingly cool compared to the dewy, hot, vomit-and-smoke air inside the pool hall. The newfound relief of her lungs lodged a more discordant pain within her heart. She really didn't want this.

Scott pressed her to the outside of the building. His lips were already making their way down her jaw line, lower and lower towards places she only wanted Patch to—

No! No more Patch. No more thoughts of Patch. Patch was in there snuggling with Marcie, her sworn enemy. If that didn't make a statement, she didn't know what would. Scott was here now. Scott wanted her, and Patch didn't.

Scott's lips pushed past the material of her shirt, planting on her shoulder. How gross. It made her feel disgusting, like a cheater.

"Oh, God."

It was more of a groan of dismay rather than the cry of ecstasy Scott apparently took it for. He wasted no time, pulling her shirt off roughly, leaving no room for her to try to yank it back.

"Um, Scott?" Nora mumbled. Now she was looking around, searching for any sign of life within the woods behind the building.

"What?" he snapped. His own shirt was already over his head. It fell to the grass with a rustling sound, inspiring a small twinge of fear in her.

"Don't you think this is a little fast?" She whispered.

He chuckled quietly. "Too fast wouldn't be fast enough. It would feel better if you took your pants off."

She thought she saw him wink at her. Ew. Charming.

Well, this plan had backfired. Patch obviously didn't care. Scott was trying to take it too far.

"So, Vee's waiting for me. She wanted to go to that new diner, you know, over by….um…"

"Right, Nora."

He went back to kissing her neck. His hands disappeared under her thin tank top, but she pushed them back out. "So can you take me to her house?"

"Hahaha," he laughed. "No."

"Scott," Nora whined.

His hands went to his pants. Nora heard the snap and _szzz_ as he undid his jeans.

"Scott! Take me home, now," she demanded, pushing him away from her, but he was so much bulkier than she was.

"Christ, Nora. Will you just shut the fuck up and enjoy it? You're such a tight-ass." He waggled his eyebrows at her. "I might like that."

Her jaw dropped. Without a word, she pushed past him, but his strong grip trapped her frail wrist.

Well. This was it. She was going to be raped and killed by Scotty the Potty. Probably wouldn't be as bad as having to watch Patch and Marcie fawn over each other, though. Then maybe she could use it to guilt-trip Patch.

Who was she kidding? All this was her stupid fault anyways.

"Are you seriously going to make me scream for help, Scott? Seriously?"

"Kinky, much? I forgot to bring the handcuffs." His hands dipped into her pants to cup her ass. He pressed against her, his erection way too obvious.

"Omigod," Nora yelled, "Help! Someo—"

His hand closed over her mouth, his other hand catching her hair and shaking her head. "Sh' th' f' up!" He hissed.

And then he let go of her suddenly.

"_Shut the fuck up_?" enunciated an angry voice.

Patch.

Nora had to admit, she was really, really, really relieved. That was probably the stupidest thing she had ever done. He could have done whatever he wanted to her, probably would have knowing Scott, and no one would have known the better.

She scrambled in the dark to push her tank top back into place and find her shirt, which was hard to do with shaking hands. The cold that numbed her nose and fingers made her sniffle. She grabbed her silky shirt and pulled it over her head, not caring if it was inside out or backwards, just that she was covered from Scott's greasy, prying, insinuating eyes.

There was a disgusting, wet crunch from where Patch stood with Scott, followed by an agonized wail.

Nora rushed over. She couldn't see well, but she flailed for Patch's arm. When she thought she found it, she tugged. "Stop, please," she pleaded. "Let's just go."

Patch looked at her, his face black with fury. His eyes were darker than black, they were liquid ebony.

_Nora._

That one word silenced her. She was in for it now.

Scott was still moaning from pain when Patch turned back to him. Nora could feel the tension in Patch's body; he was shaking from the effort to not crush the other man's body.

"I warned you," Patch hissed in his ear.

_Crack._

Scott let loose another cry, violently fighting against Patch's grip.

Nora tugged on Patch again. "Please! C'mon, please, let's just get out of here. You broke some stuff, let's leave, Patch, _please._"

He looked at her for a long, silent minute. Nora stared back with wide, fearful eyes. If Patch killed Scott, then he would for sure get sent to Hell by the Archangels. As much as she hated to admit it, she didn't truthfully want that.

_Please, please, please,_ was her mantra.

His dark eyes filled with angry accusation. Then he was gone, walking away at an almost break-neck pace. Scott fell to the ground.

_Come on._

"Nora, wait," Scott grated out. He grasped her ankle as she passed him, and she shrieked and kicked his face out of reflex. He gurgled as what she supposed to be blood flowed into the back of his throat.

She climbed into Patch's Jeep Commander. He was already sitting inside, visibly fuming. Her door wasn't even closed when he cranked the ignition and flew out of the parking lot at fifty.

There was dead silence for a moment. Nora could have cut the tension with a knife.

"I'm sorry—That was really stupid of me."

"Nora," was all he said. His knuckled were stark white against the steering wheel.

"Patch?" she sputtered.

He just shook his head, his mouth pursed in anger.

_Do you know—_

"—what could have just happened?" he finished out loud, obviously having trouble controlling his volume level.

The speedometer was pushing seventy-five. "Maybe you should slow down."

The tires screeched in protest as he skidded to a halt right there in the middle of the foggy, empty back roads and pushed on the emergency flashers. He stared into the empty darkness ahead.

"I don't see why you care, anyways," she whispered.

He shook his head, running a hand over his face like he was exhausted. "If you only knew, Nora."

Hope fluttered in her chest, making her weak in the knees. For a second, she just wanted to collapse into his body and forget whatever it was she had been so upset about, but then—

Patch pulled his phone from his pocket. The screen was lit up with the name _Marcie_ splashed across it in blocky font.

Jealousy seared Nora's tongue, making her spit out her words. "Well, answer it! Leave me here to walk home and go rescue Marcie from the dirty bar."

Patch sighed and slipped the phone back into his pocket.

"We have some time."

A pang of hurt coursed through Nora so deeply that it brought bitter tears to her eyes. She laughed, but it sounded more like a choked sob. "I don't want your borrowed time. I wish you'd left me there."

"Look," he snapped, "I don't know what your deal is with this guy, but just stop, Nora. I can't always be around to save you. It's better if you just move on and stop putting yourself in these situations."

Nora was shivering with the effort to hold back her flood of tears. They fell against her will, and she was mortified when she couldn't contain a sorrowful squeak.

She felt his thumb and forefinger on her chin, tipping her head back. He met her eyes, searching for something. She didn't know what, but she hoped that he found it.

"We can't—" He said. "We aren't—"

Her lip quivered, a drop of salt water catching in the corner and slipping into the cavern of her mouth. She licked the salt off of her lips.

His mouth crashed into hers, and she gasped at the suddenness.

After a couple of minutes, he pulled away and said, "Don't do that again."

What could she say besides, "Okay."

He kissed her a few times succinctly. "If you hadn't been there, I would have killed him, Nora."

Nora pulled back and looked at him. She couldn't figure him out. He was hot, then cold. These mixed signals were killing her. He was with Marcie, then he was with her, then he was back to Marcie.

His mouth claimed hers again.

"Marcie?" she mumbled against his lips.

"Not important."

Relief flowed through her. She had Patch. All to herself. For how long was the question.

_END_

Should I continue or not?

I totally couldn't identify with some of the things Nora did. She was a big dummy. So when I started reading Crescendo, I got to page, like, 100 and I had to stop reading. Marcie and Patch together made me physically ill, lol. I couldn't take it. I think I got to the part where he went to Marcie's house and I was like, 'That lying bastard!'


	2. Chapter Two

Thanks for the reviews and encouragement!

"_A handful of dream dust for my pirate;  
He can hear the pacific singing.  
The sea meets the light in his salt water eyes,  
Icy pictures of the water are captured in his frame."_

_-Ocean Night Song, Laura Veirs_

_Borrowed Time_

It was dark outside. Not just the regular kind of dark; the night air was thick and heavy like a blanket of water that separates your lungs from air. Or, to Nora, more like the thick snot-like consistency of okra goo when you stir it too much.

Yuck.

She was curled up on the living room couch covered by a thick wool blanket. A bowl of chili-from-the-can warmed her subarctic hands, but coincidentally burned her mouth. She had turned off all the lights and popped in _Saw_. She couldn't remember which one it was, but she did remember the maggoty pigs being obliterated into maggoty-pig-milkshakes, or something like that.

Maybe that wasn't the best thing for her to watch with a bowl of chili in her hands.

The Lionsgate cogs spun across the screen, and of course the first sounds of the movie would be screams. There was a man on the screen, she couldn't even remember who he was anymore, trying to reach for his gun in a pitch-black room.

Nora's phone lit up. It vibrated so violently that it spun across the table in quick little circles. Vee, read the caller ID.

Nora sighed. She didn't even make it five minutes into the movie. "Yes, ma'am?"

Vee was laughing obnoxiously on the other end. "Rixon!" she was squealing, her mouth away from the receiver.

Nora felt a squeeze of jealousy. She immediately felt guilty for it. This was her best friend, for crying out loud! But still, she wanted to be squealing someone's name too.

Well, not just someone.

"Oh. Hey, babe!" Vee chirped into the phone, practically radiating joy. She said it like Nora had called her instead of the other way around. "Where the hell have you been hiding? I haven't seen you in, like, three days! I'm having withdrawal symptoms over here. Geez!"

Nora laughed, hoping that it didn't sound as fake as it felt. "Sorry."

Where had she been? She had been here. Watching horrific movies that made her feel better about her life. At least she wasn't getting tortured by Jigsaw, right? She had been hiding. Hiding from Patch and Marcie, and inevitably Vee and Rixon because they only reminded her of the other two.

"Sooo! Where _have_ you been, Nora?" Vee pressed.

"Um," Nora stuttered. "I went to watch Scott play pool last night."

"_Scotty the Hottie?_" Vee screeched. "Oh, you have been a busy girl."

If Vee only knew the truth. What was Nora supposed to say? _Yeah, and then he pretty much tore my clothes off behind the place. And I'm pretty sure Patch broke his junk off._

No. Way. Better to just leave it be.

"Not as busy as you apparently are," Nora changed the subject.

"So come to the movies with us! Rixon's treat? Or, hey, bring Scott-O the Hott-O! Even better."

Nora totally didn't feel like being the third wheel at the moment.

"I think I'll pass this time. I just put in a movie and put some lasagna in the oven." A lie. "I talked to him earlier and he said he was busy tonight, anyways." Another lie.

When had she become such a terrible liar?

"Well, alright," muttered Vee, eating up all the untruths. "We have to eat lunch tomorrow, then. Just me and you, so we can catch up on gossip!"

Nora smiled. "Definitely. Bye, Vee. Have fun."

They both hung up.

Last night had sucked. The whole thing reeked. Her pettiness had put her into real danger, and Patch was right; he wasn't always going to be there to save her when she did something dangerous just to piss him off. But she was so desperate to have his attention away from Marcie that she would have done just about anything.

So Patch had kissed her. So he had touched her. So what? He was a guy, that didn't mean anything. So he had taken her home, walked her inside. Scott could have been there, Patch was just being safe. So he had lingered, then snatched her up and propped her against the island bar in the kitchen, spreading her long legs like the front and back cover of a book. He was just—Well, she didn't exactly have an explanation for that one.

In the end, he had left. Patch left her. That was all that mattered.

The movie had come to a suspenseful quiet part. There was a creak from the back of the house.

Now, Nora knew the house was old, but she had also lived in it for a long, long time. That specific creak sounded like a misplaced footstep.

Fear spiked in her chest. She snatched the remote from the lamp table and pushed the mute button.

"Hello?" she whispered, glancing furtively into the pitch-black entryway of the kitchen.

Silence. She felt a tremble creep up her spine. Someone was watching her, she could feel it.

"Patch?" she called, louder this time.

"Not hardly," said a cold voice.

Nora shrieked, but choked on it as large, rough hands wrapped around her frail neck. Her breath jumped out of her body as she was thrown against the wall, hitting the window and making the venetian blinds collapse on her already aching head.

"Look what he did to my nose!" shrieked the voice, which she now recognized to be Scott's. He ripped the blinds away from her and held her face up in a bruising grasp.

"Mmf," she moaned, trying to pull away. Sure enough, his nose was crooked as Owen Wilson's, sitting on his face at a seventy degree angle.

His grip on her face loosened and he pushed her head back into the wall forcefully. He backed off and she scrambled away from him.

Ever since her incident with Elliot, Nora kept a can of pepper spray around the house. At the moment, it was in the kitchen, in the odds and ends drawer.

Nora bolted, feeling in her bones exactly where she was headed and what she was headed for, and knowing that if she could make it there she would be alright.

She ran for her life, sliding across the kitchen floor and pulling the drawer out. Her heart thundered in her ears, followed closely by the pounding of Scott's shoes as he chased her. He caught her by the leg and dragged her back. The drawer clattered to the floor, pens and prescription pill bottles flying out. She fumbled around in it as he dragged her, but she had already found what she needed.

She lifted the tab up and pressed down the button. The particles fell against her skin too, and it burned, God did it burn. It felt like smoldering ashes falling on her skin, and she wondered what it felt like for Scott to be caught directly in the line of fire. The smell was horrible, like spicy bug killer.

He roared, releasing her ankles and writhing, trying to pull his soaked clothes off.

Nora scrambled up, coughing out the specks that burned her lungs and running from the quickly spreading smell. She grabbed a knife from a drawer and ran into the living room, shakily searching for her misplaced phone.

The lamp table was turned over. It had been on the lamp table. She patted the floor blindly in the dark. She found it after a few seconds; it had skidded halfway across the room towards the TV, a few feet past the coffee table. She snatched it up, looking under recent calls and tapping on Patch's name.

_Ring. Ring. Ring._ "This is Patch. Leave a message." _Beep._

She knew she would sound terrible. She had just been choked and half-way pepper sprayed, not to mention that she was scared out of her mind right now. "Patch—"

"You fucking bitch," Scott said from behind her. He didn't scream it. He wasn't insanely irate. He was calm. Deadly calm. Calm like now he was going to kill her. He grabbed the phone from her hand and clicked End.

How had he recovered that fast? Her thighs were still on fire from the spray.

Scott leaned back. Nora lashed out with the knife, feeling it drag across flesh. She didn't even feel the pain when he hit her, and she didn't see stars either. Her whole world was just black.

She didn't know how long it had been. She knew it was still dark out, but the sky was beginning to lighten. It made her feel sick. Were her eyes open or weren't they?

She wasn't even really awake when she drunkenly reached for her phone, knowing that she should be calling somebody—911, her mother, Vee, anybody. She stared at the screen for a long time, the haze of unconsciousness making her brain slow to comprehend things.

2 new messages.

11:04 p.m.

_Patch:_

_You okay, Angel?_

12:38 a.m.

_Patch:_

_Nora, are you okay?_

She wanted to answer, to say anything. Type, she urged her fingers. Please, type. Slowly, barely, her thumb touched the letters. Just two, the only ones she could manage.

1:31 a.m.

_Nora:_

_No_

To Nora, it seemed like she had been out for days. Weeks, even. But when the sound of the front door closing woke her and she glanced at the clock, it only read 2:02. She closed her eyes again, drifting, and couldn't remember what she had just seen.

She heard footsteps approaching. Heard a sigh just before warm hands pulled her up. Her head? Her whole body? She couldn't tell. She was being laid on something soft. Ah, so she had been picked up, put on the couch, she assumed.

The same hands brushed hair from her face, touching broken skin and making her brows twist together in pain.

Footsteps. Water running in the kitchen. More footsteps.

It was morning. It was breakfast time. Dad was making breakfast for her.

"Dad?" Nora called.

"No, Angel," said a very sad voice.

There was a warm washcloth against her head, rubbing raw, bruised flesh. It brought the pain back, and at the moment she was associating pain with Scott, so it brought back her memories of the night before.

She punched and flailed and fought. Against what, she didn't know, but she was going to kick its butt before it did the same to her. "No!" she screamed.

He had come back. Come back to torture her some more.

Hands restrained her. "Nora!" called the person. "It's okay, Angel, it's going to be okay."

Nora opened her eyes. Correction—eye. One of them was so bruised and swollen that there was no possible way she could open it.

"Patch?" Her voice was hoarse, probably from being choked. It hurt to swallow.

"Oh," Patch groaned, pity thick in his voice, "Angel. What happened?"

Nora closed her eye and buried her head in her arms. She wanted him to leave. She wanted to be left alone. She wanted Scott to come back and finish her off.

Patch was playing her. I mean, obviously, right? She wanted to ask him, scream at him, where he had been. Where was he when she needed him? Somehow that tapered off into wondering what Scott had done to her after he knocked her unconscious. Kicking her was probably involved, because her ribs hurt like a mug.

She started crying, because she was embarrassed and she was ashamed. And then her ribs hurt even worse, if possible, and she started heaving her tearless sobs wheezily.

She didn't want to see what he would do when she told him, either.

"You know," she squeaked through her hands.

She felt Patch stiffen, rage roiling off of him. "Is this blood yours?" he asked.

She hadn't noticed before, but there were small, slick dark pools spattered across the floor. She had some smeared across her too. Mostly in the most inconvenient places below her waist.

She felt heat rising to her face, hoping he wasn't asking what she thought he was asking.

"I don't think so," she told him quietly. "I think I might have cut him before he—before he hit me."

Patch was silent. He usually was. She couldn't tell what he was thinking. She didn't want to know. She just knew that she was tired. So tired.

"Can we go to sleep?" She asked. "Please don't go."

He nodded, his eyes unreadable, dark enigmas.

_Never, Angel._

Hm. What will Patch do to Scott, I wonder?

Yesss, the last few pages of Crescendo were wonderful. When Patch told Nora that he loved her I was like "Squeeeee." And then there was the big cliffy. I hate cliff-hangers. I always read the last pages first because I hate not knowing.

By the way, that song by Laura Veirs, Ocean Night Song, listen to it. Now. It changed my life.

Review please? Review and you get dirty, smutty sex? Huh, huh?


	3. Chapter Three

"_Oh, my blue, blue caravan  
The highway is my great wall,  
For my true love is a man  
Who never existed at all.  
Oh, he was a beautiful fiction  
I invented to keep out the cold."_

_-Blue Caravan, Vienna Teng_

_!_

_Borrowed Time_

_!_

When Nora woke, Patch was there. He was holding a bag of ice to her face, and now that she was coming out of unconsciousness it kind of burned. When she looked in the mirror her eye was only half the size it felt like it should have been.

"Geez!" she grumbled when they went downstairs. "What did I do, hit an artery? That can't be mine."

The amount of blood that trailed around the house amazed Nora. It made winding burgundy patterns through the living room, then into the kitchen, then out the door and across the front porch.

"The femoral one, yes, possibly," mused Patch. He didn't look at all upset about that. She was the one that would have to clean it all up. Good thing her mom didn't come home for another couple of days.

_Omigod_, thought Nora, _What if he's, like, passed out somewhere out there?_

_He's not. I checked._

Nora collapsed on the couch. The house was a massacre. The lamp table had been turned over, the lamp that usually sat there broken. The knife she had used against Scott lay bloodied on the floor, and the discarded pepper spray can had rolled over to the wall and settled there. The drawer she had pulled out in the kitchen was turned upside down, its entire contents splayed all around the linoleum floor.

Nora had a ferocious headache, not to mention her aching ribs that made breathing normally really hard to do.

Patch dodged the spots of blood and reached for the can of pepper spray. He jiggled it at her, and what was left in it sloshed around. He raised a perfect, dark brow.

Nora pressed her hands together, making a steeple, and rested her face against them. "Hey, it helped, didn't it? Ever since the Elliot and Jules thing—well, you know."

He nodded. "I know."

_!_

There was no way Vee was going to let her back out of this lunch date, not after last night.

So here she was, gliding through the tables as quick as she could with Patch's ball cap twisted down over her face. Vee gave her a long, wide-eyed stare when she sat down at the table

"Ookay," drawled Vee. "I'll bite. What's with the hat and the secret squirrel get-up?"

Nora kept her head low for a minute, then lifted the hat up just a little bit so that Vee could see her eye in all its purple, swollen glory.

"OMG!" she squealed, bouncing in her seat. "What the fudge happened?"

The waitress came over and took their orders, postponing what Nora had dreaded telling her best friend.

"Shh," Nora urged. She sighed. "Okay, so I wasn't exactly truthful with you."

"I knew it! So what happened? Did he tie you up? Was it dirty and kinky and rough?"

"It's _so_ not like that," Nora told her.

"Well, what _was_ it like?"

"It was like hey, let me force you against the wall and rip your clothes off and then have Patch come and break my penis off."

Vee's mouth made a horrified 'O' shape. "No. Way. THIS IS SO EXCITING."

"Exciting?" Nora gasped. "Vee! Scott came to my house last night. He tried to, like, kill me and stuff!"

"_What?_ Are you kidding?"

"Um, where did you think the black eye came from? I was watching _Saw_ and he came out of practically nowhere and started tossing me around like a freaking football. I had to pepper spray him and pull a knife on him to get him out of the house."

An older couple at the table behind them was glancing nervously at the two girls. Nora and Vee leaned in towards each other so that no one else would hear any vital info.

Vee stared anxiously at Nora, waiting to eat up her next words. "Patch found me at like two this morning."

"Wait, wait, wait. What was he doing coming to your house at two a.m.?"

"I called him when I got Scott off of me."

Vee stared at her, like she knew that there was more to it than that.

Nora ducked her head. "Okay, so maybe he came to my house the night before and we totally made-out."

Vee leaned back in her chair, an I-knew-it look on her gorgeous face. "Mmm hm."

"Oh, shut up," mumbled Nora.

Their waitress came back toting a large round tray, and she passed their food out to them.

"So," Vee spoke through a mouthful, "What are you going to do? I mean, he obviously knows how to get into your house."

Nora was thoughtful for a moment. What could she do? Patch was always busy. Her head filled with hazy anger at that thought. Scott did know how to get into her house, and now she knew that pepper spray didn't do much against him. "I don't know. Maybe he won't come back."

Vee gave her a look. It was a look that said, Honey, you know he's coming back with a vengeance. Nora was relieved that she hadn't said it aloud. "Maybe you should stay at my house or something."

Nora was thankful for the offer, but she wasn't particularly interested in watching Rixon and Vee snog twenty-four-seven. "I don't know. I'll figure something out."

"Well, you know if you ever need me I'll be there in a lightning flash. Same for Rixon."

She smiled wanly. "Thanks."

Nora pulled out her phone and started typing.

12:21 p.m.

_Nora:_

_Hey. What are you doing?_

She pushed the send button and waited, anxiousness pulling at her insides. She was thankful that Vee was distracting her by chattering away happily. Another Rixon story. Nora giggled with her in all the right places, but she wasn't listening.

_Buzz. Buzz._

She snatched up her phone.

12:25 p.m.

_Patch:_

_Nothing important. Everything okay?_

Nora thought for a moment. What could she possibly say back? She could say, no. She shouldn't say that. That would seem a little melodramatic. She could not answer at all? Well, that would be silly. He would chase her down for sure. He probably already knew what was going on in her head anyways, so what was the point?

12:31 p.m.

_Nora:_

_Stay with me tonight. He'll come back._

She pushed send again, tapping the button before she could chicken out. Her phone didn't buzz for a long time, and she kept nervously checking it. Just when she was about to start typing again, telling him to forget about it, or maybe that he was a jerk, or even maybe to ask if he was with _her_, her phone vibrated.

12:44 p.m.

_Patch:_

_Of course, Angel._

Vee was finishing up her meal. "Retail therapy, anybody?" she asked.

Nora didn't want to go home where she would be alone and vulnerable. "Yeah," she told Vee. "That sounds great."

_!_

It was getting dark outside when Vee dropped Nora off. That girl could shop with the best of them.

"You gonna be okay?" Vee asked her as she was crawling out of the passenger seat.

Nora nodded and waved her friend off, galloping up the stairs and across the front porch. When she walked into the living room, it was miraculously clean. The smell of food wafted in from the kitchen.

She dropped her stuff on the table and walked into the kitchen. "Patch?"

"Hey," he called back.

Relief flooded her. It wasn't Scott. It wasn't creepy Scotty the Potty frying up a side dish so that he could deep fry her brain parts like Hannibal Lector, or something weird and insane like that.

The lamp table was propped up correctly, a brand new lamp taking the old one's place. The blinds were back up and the blood was gone. She walked into the kitchen, where Patch stood sautéing something. He had put the drawer back in its spot and picked up everything that had been scattered across the room.

"You really are an angel," she told him, smiling as she crossed the room to lounge against the counter next to him. He smirked at her, his eyes black and unreadable.

They ate. Nora put on a movie and curled into the couch, Patch beside her. She totally wasn't in the mood for scary movies anymore, so she put in The Sweetest Thing.

Okay, so maybe that wasn't the best movie to watch while lying against Patch. She felt really awkward when Cameron Diaz stripped naked and had orgasms while eating ice cream.

"Oh, gawd," she mumbled, giggling and burying her head under the covers.

Patch laughed at her.

Peter was disappearing under Diaz's covers again, explaining to her that men really didn't like filatio. In Patch's case, Nora guessed that was true. He wouldn't feel it.

_We could do that_.

An immediate bolt of heat swept from her thighs to her face. She looked up at him, finally able to see with both eyes. "Mmmmm."

Her heart was literally pounding. Only now did she realize just how much she wanted that with him. He smiled down wickedly at her, inherently knowing what she was thinking and feeling.

Then his mouth was on hers and she moaned. _Please, please_, she was thinking. Please, what? She didn't know, really. She wanted him to make her feel good.

And he did. His legs were prying her open, the feel of his hip bones pressed into her pliable thighs made her brain hazy with ecstasy. She was in his arms now, scooped up and being carried up the stairs and plopped onto her bed.

She stared up at him dumbly. His shirt was already off. His muscles were sinewy and hard when they collided with her upper body. His mouth on her neck, his teeth against her ear and collarbone, sinking in, were nothing like Scott's. She only felt dirty in a good way now.

His warm hands were under her shirt, grasping things, then pulling it off. He looked at her like he wanted to eat her. She hoped that he would. Her bra was off then in one fell swoop.

His mouth was a terrible thing, grasping her heated skin and twirling it. Her breathing was becoming more and more erratic, and it was impossible to stop the gasps and mewls that left her mouth. His nimble fingers sunk below her waistband.

He pulled her shorts down and off slowly, slowly, slowly. His mouth went to her stomach, lower and lower. Her underwear was pink with little large-eyed owls on it, and she saw him smile but she didn't care. Because they were coming down, leaving her body like her brain was leaving this galaxy.

His mouth parted, his lips luscious and red. His tongue, satin.

The door downstairs closed.

_!_

I'm not sure if this story is ready for an M-rating. What do you think?

So, here's my deal. Do you think that physically, Patch could—you know? Because, okay, yeah he can't feel anything. But half of that act is response to the other person's arousal, right? Sooooooo, can Patch get it up? Haha.

Review, review, review!


	4. Chapter Four

"_Give me the first taste  
Let it begin, heaven cannot wait forever  
Darling, just start the chase  
I'll let you win."_

_-First Taste, Fiona Apple_

_!_

_Borrowed Time_

_!_

"Nora?"

It was her mother. She was home a day early. Nora glanced at the clock by her bedside. 9:57, it read.

"Craaap," Nora groaned, throwing her head back. "Are you serious?" She rubbed her hands over her face, the muscles there aching from having been contorted in pleasure for so long.

"She's coming up to check on you," said Patch matter-of-factly.

She practically shoved him off of her and towards her closet. "Hide!" she urged. "Hide, hide."

She pushed him in, a stunned yet amused look on his perfectly symmetrical face, tossing his clothes in after him. Shutting the doors, she leapt across the room and threw the comforter over herself, holding her breath as the door squeaked open. Her mother's face peaked in.

"You asleep, hun?"

Nora stayed silent and still. After a few seconds the door squeaked back into place, snapping as it shut.

She waited, then slowly endeavored to raise her head above the covers. The closet door whooshed open to reveal Patch. His shirt was pulled back over his head and he was wrestling with the armholes.

Nora felt herself fill to the brim with sadness. He was leaving. She should have expected that. Things couldn't be that good forever.

_Don't be sad, Angel._

"Then don't leave."

His eyes were dark and matte as rocks. He watched the floor, then glanced up towards her again. "You know I have to."

"No, not really. I might know if you would ever tell me what the heck's going on with you," she pressed. "Why are you doing this?"

"Nora." His voice was full of warning, but underneath that he sounded tired. Drained. Fed up? Probably with her, she figured.

He shook his head like he was reading her thoughts. He probably was. He headed for the window. She so badly wished that he wouldn't go.

"Are you going to _her_?" Her words sounded like the whisper of a leaf being blown across pavement. When they left her mouth, they suddenly didn't make sense to her. Like those five words should never have been strung together in that way. Maybe she had meant that to be a thought. It didn't matter; he would have heard it either way.

"Do you want to hear the answer to that question?"

_No_, her brain told her.

"Yes," she told Patch.

He had a smile on his face. It was an expression that didn't reach his eyes. His face was a jagged, ugly, beautiful thing; an uneven mixture of happiness and horror. She hoped that he hated himself. She screamed it at him in her head, all the while knowing that she would eat him up the moment he came back.

His unhappy smile told her everything she needed to know.

Burning like a brand, he took flight from the window.

!

"Oh em gee," said Vee, sounding unamused. "He was totally gonna go down on you and then your mom came home?"

Nora sighed long and hard. "Yep."

"And then he just…left?"

"…Yep."

"Did he say where he was going?"

To Marcie's.

"Nope."

Vee grumbled into the phone. "No sign of Scotty the Naughty?"

Nora laughed. "Scotty the Naughty. I might like that if it didn't sound so tame compared to what he really is. Which is a lunatic."

"Loose-Screw Scotty," Vee quipped, sounding proud of herself.

"Oo, good one."

"So, what did your mom say about that shiner?"

"She hasn't seen it yet," Nora told Vee. She looked in the mirror. What was purple and swollen the day before was now yellow-ish and nothing more than a cut. "Besides, it's pretty much gone. Maybe I'll just put some makeup over it or something."

"Are you gonna come with me to that show tonight? You know you totally have to. Maybe some of that luck you have will rub off on me and I'll have a couple of guys brawling."

"Luck. Right. You can have all of it."

"Is that a yes?"

Vee was going, so that meant that Rixon would be there. Rixon being there meant that Patch would probably be there. And, of course, Marcie diligently followed Patch around.

Nora was a glutton for punishment, she knew and accepted that. But there was no way Vee was going to let her off the hook without giving her hell about it. So she would have to use this chance to its full advantage. She wanted to look nice. Like, make-Marcie-glare-daggers, make-Patch-ditch-Marcie nice.

"Um, duh."

"See you at six, then, hooker."

_!_

"When I called you a hooker, I totally didn't mean I wanted you to really dress like one," Vee told her.

Nora gaped. "Do you think it's too much?"

She had put on a plum colored dress, a black belt at her waist, black stockings and black heels. The dress would come down to just above the knees of any normal person, but her legs were so long that the dress was begging to touch her mid-thigh. Just like someone else would be. She had her tumbleweed hair lion-maned and curly—just like he liked it.

"You are such a bitch for looking that good and not telling me that we were dressing up!"

Vee had on an off-white sweater dress that definitely accentuated certain D-sized features. She had on tight black pants and some knee-high boots. Nora had thought that she was already dressed up. She dreaded seeing just how much more 'dressed up' Vee could get.

"You look great!" Nora laughed.

"Get in the car hooker bitch," she joked.

"That'll be fifty bucks," Nora joked back.

Their heels tapped in unison against the pavement as they walked into the venue. Vee immediately found Rixon waiting for her. She fell into his arms while Nora stood a bit awkwardly in the background.

And then there they were: Patch and Marcie. She was practically clinging to him. To Nora's surprise, instead of indulging, he looked a bit stricken.

_Be careful. Scott's lurking._

She nodded infinitesimally.

"Ew," spat Marcie to her. "What are you wearing?"

Nora glanced down at the piece of cloth on Marcie that could barely pass for a dress. "They're called clothes. Maybe you've heard of them? Probably not."

Jealousy and spite spurred Nora, but she really just felt like melting into the wall. Scott was here, somewhere. Maybe he would drag her away and torture her in the foggy woods. Then she wouldn't have to look at the tops of Marcie's barely-existent thighs, because Lord knew everyone there could see that and more.

"Nasty skank," Marcie uttered.

"Simmer down, Queen of Hypocrites." Nora rolled her eyes at the strawberry-blonde.

"Well," mused Vee, "this is…slightly less heated than normal?"

She totally wasn't into it right now. Yeah, she hated Marcie. What a rancid, rotten witch. However, being the fifth wheel was worse than being the third wheel, and now she just wanted to be left alone to mope over in a corner.

"Whatever. Thirsty. Getting a drink now," she called over the heightening music.

To tell you the truth, Nora was a little tired of being jerked back and forth. And now she felt that this was probably a mistake. She wanted to be back on the couch, hiding from the world and watching a gory movie.

She sat at the bar with no drink. She didn't really want one. The people swayed with the first twanging chords of deafening music. The whole thing left a bad taste in her mouth.

Then she caught a glimpse of the back of Marcie's head.

Pressed flush against Patch's face.

The bodies swayed again, strobe lights working to Nora's advantage. She saw them against the wall. She saw Marcie's skeletal hand breaching the top of his pants.

And there it was. There was the ugly, ugly truth.

Like lightning, she fell into the pit of people and shoved all of them out of her way until she was face-first with the back of Marcie's pale head.

Patch, unlike Marcie, had seen her coming. She must have looked like a terrible, vengeful thing to him because his colorless eyes were wide, expectant and only for her.

Nora didn't pull Marcie's hair. Oh, no. That was something that weak white-trash girls did when they were mad that some girl had said 'hi' to their boyfriend. No, no. Marcie had her spider's-legs hand creeping down his pants. Nora, like a woman possessed, felt her fist wind out and crack Marcie's right eyebrow.

The blood spurted, leveling a deep satisfaction within her. That was for that night at Battle of the Bands.

Marcie was dumbstruck for a second, then reached for Nora with spindly, sharp-nailed fingers. She pushed the bleeding girl away. Marcie wasn't the one she wanted.

Nora leveled her gaze at Patch, arresting him with a shaking pointer finger.

She imagined the things he might tell her. That he was just about to stop Marcie, to push her away and tell her that he didn't want that with her. Or maybe that it didn't matter because he couldn't feel it. He knew what it meant, though. He knew what it meant to Nora, most of all.

Instead, he was silent inside and out. He almost surely already knew what she expected from him, so why repeat it?

Her mind was a chaotic jumble of angry thoughts and feelings. _Do not even_, was the only coherent sentence she could manage for a second. _How dare you_, she thought. How dare he kiss her and tell her that he cared about her and let her believe it when the last couple of months had been a big, stupid lie? How dare he take off her clothes and then let Marcie, _Marcie for God's sake_, under his own clothes?

And then she was gone. She was done.

Her body drifted away from silent Patch and stunned Marcie and the rest of the wobbling crowd. She was outside in the cool air and it was raining. She was walking down the road with no idea where Vee was, or if she was looking for her, or if she didn't even care because she was with wonderful, _truthful_ Rixon.

She was crossing a bridge, thinking of how badly she wanted Patch to just follow her and apologize, when there was a hand on her shoulder.

"I didn't mean to hit her," she blurted as she turned. "I'm sorry."

There was a sharp pain in her belly, a heavy hand on her elbow bracing her. She didn't understand until she touched her stomach and felt the wetness, the blade embedded beneath her burning ribcage.

Even then, she couldn't look at the person a few inches away, the person that was killing her, that had planned on throwing her body into the river below the bridge after she bled out. She could only focus on Patch standing ten feet behind the two of them.

Nora wanted to think a lot of things at him. Tell him that she was angry, that she was dizzy or dying, that she loved him. To please, please save her this one last time and maybe love her, or else let her die and he could be with Marcie peacefully. She wanted him to relay a message for Vee and her mother, but words were slipping away.

She wondered whether she had been thrown into the river already, or if this was just what death felt like: cold and shaky and too much like sleep.

_Don't let go, Nora. Hold on._ She thought it could have been Patch urging her, but then it sounded too much like her father.

_!_

Okay, so this is what's up. I work for a chocolatier. We make truffles. Myself and the three other people I work with have to make 8,000 (Yes, 8,000) of said truffles by MONDAY for the reopening of a place that flooded last year. So I may be out of commission for the next couple of days. But I will update by Sunday at the latest.

THAT IS, if I have 23 reviews by Sunday. Seriously people? I have 600 views, 10 favorites and alerts. And…..13 reviews? We can do better!

I WANT 8,000 REVIEWS BY MONDAY.

GO.

(Can you do the dirty with a stab wound? Because I think Nora wants to.)


	5. Chapter Five

"_I loved you with a fire red,_

_now it's turning blue  
And you say sorry like the Angel_

_Heaven let me think was you."_

_-Apologize, One Republic_

_!_

_Borrowed Time_

_!_

_Come back to us, Angel._

_No_, Nora thought. Why should she? The only thing waiting for her was heartache. She felt like a glass doll that had been spun from the bitterest hatred. Now she was broken, and it felt like nothing could ever mend her.

_I'll wake up,_ she thought,_ and you'll go back to her and forget about me. If I let go, then I can forget about you. I can forget about how much I love you._

_No, Angel. No._

He was right. She would never be able to forget about how much she loved him.

The darkness was too warm, too safe, like a bullet-proof vest that helped her escape most of the pain. Why would she leave this place, this heavy river of time and memories and voices?

_Please, Nora_.

_No,_ she resolved stubbornly, if only to hear him beg again.

_I know I'm selfish, I know. But please, I love you too much to let you go. I'm sorry I let this happen to you._

She hummed with satisfaction. _In five minutes._

The voices receded. Had he told her that he loved her? She couldn't quite remember. She wouldn't believe it if she could.

Hours later, she awoke.

Vee squealed the exact second that Nora's eyes popped open. "Oh. My. God. I thought you were, like, dead." Tears trailed down her face, leaving it goopy with mascara.

Nora didn't respond. She was regaining her bearings in the real world. She was in a dark room. Black curtains, maroon walls. She was on a surprisingly comfy couch.

"What happened?" she groaned.

"You were outside and someone shanked you. Patch said he found you. Rixon apparently took some badass nursing classes because he stitched you up. The hospital would have called your mom," she explained. "I didn't know how well she would react if she heard that her only daughter got stabbed. You would never be allowed to go out, like, ever again."

Nora remembered being mad, really mad, the hand on her shoulder, Patch's horrified face going out of focus, and the feel of metal scraping the bottom of her ribs from the inside. She pulled the green flannel covers away from herself. Her dressy clothes had been replaced by a way too big T-shirt. She wondered whose it was, and hoped that the blood would come out of her dress.

Right above her bellybutton and to the left was a long red mark, thick inky stitches weaving in and out around it. She wanted to touch it, but thought better.

"Ugh," Nora croaked. "What did you tell my mom? Is she freaking out?"

"I told her that you were staying with me tonight because you have explosive diarrhea. She said okay."

Nora's stomach muscles tensed as she laughed, then she gasped. "OW!"

One of two doors in the room creaked open. Two figures, decidedly masculine, walked in. It was Patch and Rixon, she knew that from the way the air in the room changed. She heard one of them pull up a chair and sit.

"You okay, Angel?" Patch.

Nora was too busy focusing on pushing the pain in her belly away. "That really does hurt," she said breathily, spots blooming in front of her closed eyes. She pulled the blanket back over her head and practiced breathing exercises.

"Oi, Vee!" Rixon called from where he had been leaning against the wall, grabbing Vee and sweeping her up. "Come check this out, I just—"

And they were gone, leaving only Patch and herself in the room. Great, just great.

It was dead silent for a minute, like neither of them wanted to speak first. "So what _really_ happened?" she asked him finally. She didn't know whether she was referring to the attack or what happened between him and Marcie.

He was thoughtful. "I don't know yet," he told her a second later.

She snorted. "What do you mean, you don't know yet?" she asked angrily. "Who put a knife in my gut, Patch?"

"It—" he hesitated, confused. "It wasn't Scott."

Nora was a little surprised also. "Who was it then?" she asked, her tone softening.

"When I figure out what's going on, you'll be the first one to know. Trust me, Angel."

She should have focused on the fact that he had side-stepped her question, or that he obviously didn't know what had truly happened, but instead she felt her anger flare to life over the last words he had said.

"Ha!" she scoffed, making her insides ache. "Trust _you_? I won't make that mistake again."

Patch made a pained face. "Angel—"

"Don't 'Angel' me." She turned to him, a slow, arduous task. "Marcie had her hands down your freaking pants. Don't ask me to trust you when you come to my house one night and get me naked, then let Marcie give you a hand job the next night."

She had flipped herself over so that she was sitting up, her feet flat against the floor and her finger in his face. Her anger made the pain disappear, and she liked it.

"It wasn't—"

"It wasn't like that?" She couldn't stop herself, she reached out and shoved his chest as hard as she could. He had to balance himself to stop the chair from tipping out from under him. "How many excuses can you come up with for a hand down the pants? Did she trip and catch herself on your crotch?"

Nora recognized the furious spark that lit in his eyes. She wanted him to bring it on, to hash it out with her right here and now before the sickness that was their relationship destroyed her from the inside out.

"First of all, sit back down. You're going to hurt yourself." She hadn't even realized that she had stood up. "Secondly, Marcie didn't make the decision to put her hand down my pants. It was suggested to her."

Nora felt the shock and confusion on her face. Suggested? As in like how Patch could suggest things to humans?

"It didn't matter to me what she was doing. I couldn't feel it anyways," he continued. "I was trying to figure out where the other fallen was, and then you fell on us like a hurricane."

The look on Patch's face was a mixture of pride and annoyance.

Nora tried to piece all this together.

"Someone's been watching us, Nora."

A chill shivered down her spine. It was a trap. Someone urged Marcie to put her hand down Patch's pants, knowing that Nora would see and react exactly as she did. The other fallen angel knew that she would blow up and then storm out, leaving her completely vulnerable. Nora guessed that they just hadn't counted on Patch following her.

"And you played right into their hand," he said.

She couldn't say anything. She wanted to smack herself. It was all so clear now. She threw her head back against the lumpy pillow, groaning.

"I'm glad you woke up," Patch whispered after a second.

Nora looked at him, really looked. He had bags under his eyes, and she wondered how long he had been waiting for her to wake up. His hair was unkempt, like he had kept running his hands through it in worry. She offered him a tiny smile.

She wanted to tell him that she loved him, so much, but that hadn't worked out so well the last time.

Instead, he filled the silence with, "You need a shower. I'll help you."

She couldn't help the naughty grin that metastasized across her face. "I'm not dirty."

"You're covered in river water, Angel."

Nora started. "What?"

"The person, they were cloaked. They threw you in the water so that I couldn't chase them."

"You dove in after me?" she asked.

"Of course," he mumbled. Like it was nothing.

"O-oh."

Patch helped her up and they scuttled across the room and into the bathroom. It really hurt her to extend her left leg too far; it felt as if the skin of her abdomen and upper thigh was stretched too far. The stitches pulled uncomfortably.

He leaned her against the counter and turned the shower on, then pulled his shirt over his head.

"What—what are you doing?" she stuttered.

He gave her a crooked smile. "Helping you?"

The top of his pants fell over his hips, colliding with the floor.

"O-oh." She soaked the sight of his bare flesh up like a depraved little sponge. "This isn't helping."

The boxers slipped lower.

Lower.

Off.

Nora slapped her hand over her eyes just as they fell away. Her face was burning with blood, making her woozy. She could touch it all day long, but when it came to looking at the thing eye to eye, it made her very nervous.

Patch laughed an evil laugh. She heard the smacking of his feet on the tile as he stepped closer, felt his fingers on the hem of the T-shirt. He gently pried her fingers back, but she squeezed her eyes shut.

"Open your eyes," he laughed.

"I don't know," she whispered. She popped her eyes open to look at his amused face, something darker than laughter behind his kohl eyes. Ever so slowly, her gaze drifted downwards.

Her head popped back up. She pursed her lips together and felt her face fill with even more blood, if that was possible. "Oh. Wow."

He smiled at her and pulled the shirt up and over her head. He didn't hesitate to fill his hands with her ample breasts. He moved in closer to her, his mouth pressing against hers.

"Wow," he whispered against her lips. Her heart palpitated; she was filled to the brim with desire for him.

She laid her head against his chest, the too-long absence of his skin against her own bothering her. She pressed herself against him, wrapping her arms around his mid-section and sighing. He rested his head on the top of hers, his long arms encircling her stooping body.

"I miss you," she told him.

She felt him nod against her head. "I miss you, too, Angel," he admitted somberly.

After a minute, he pulled her towards the shower. "Maybe now we can finish what we started the other night?"

_!_

DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY HOURS I'VE WORKED THIS WEEK? 50. That's how many. _And_ I wrote a chapter for you guys. Where's my love? Thanks to those who pointed out the anonymous reviews thing, I didn't realize.

Heads up: Next chapter, we're moving this to the M-section, BABY!

And P.S. how many of you have read Julie Kagawa's Iron King series? If you haven't, I implore that you do. Its section needs more fanfiction. Review!


	6. Chapter Six M

"_Come on, get higher, loosen my lips  
Faith and desire in the swing of your hips  
Just pull me down hard  
And drown me in love."_

_-Matt Nathanson, Come On Get Higher_

_!_

_Borrowed Time_

_!_

His hand was on hers, his other hand grasping her elbow as she stepped into the tub. The water was hot, but not as hot as her flesh seemed to be. His fingertips whispered against her sides, her thighs, her neck, her lips, but the only thing she could seem to focus on was her still in place underwear.

She glanced down at them, electric blue and decorated with mushrooms. His gaze followed hers.

"Need help with those?"

"Um," she stuttered. Her hands were shaking, and she hoped that Patch wouldn't notice.

He dropped to his knees in front of her. His chest was toned and perfect and too much for Nora. His arm muscles flexed. Those perfect satin lips drifted to the edge of her panties and he took hold of the lace bow there with his teeth.

He tugged them down with his mouth, catching an edge with his curved finger and pulling. He kissed her exposed lower belly.

Patch looked up at Nora, seriousness clouding the lust already in his gaze. "I won't do anything you don't want me to, Angel."

Nora's breathing was coming out in gasps. The look in his eyes was driving her insane. "What I want—" She laughed forlornly.

His tongue flashed out unexpectedly.

"Ah!" She hadn't meant it to be that loud. That was the most amazing thing she had ever felt.

Patch made a noise in the back of his throat, a noise that made her insides burn. He tugged on her hips, pulling her down to the bottom of the bath tub. She quickly obliged, unabashedly spreading her legs for him, even though it bothered her stitches a bit.

His tongue lashed out again, trailing intricate patterns across her most sensitive places, making her shake with pleasure and cry out in anticipation.

Nora wasn't a vulgar girl by any means, but the only thing she could think was a broken string of _fuck fuck fuck._

_Want to?_

She half-way screamed. "Yes!" she gasped, choking on the words and water flowing over the two of them. "Yes, yes, yes."

Something warm and jittery and wonderful coiled in her belly and thighs. "Oh," she moaned at this new sensation. Her legs shook, her back arched, her teeth ground. Nora's hands grasped Patch's wet hair and all of a sudden—

His fingers were in her and she was coming, coming, coming; screaming against his mouth that was now on hers. She was loud, he was trying to hide her noises with his kisses, but she couldn't help it. God, it just felt so good and she couldn't stop and it was him, he was there with her.

She was writhing in his arms, pressing her hips against his own, surprised to feel hardness there.

_Do it, please, please,_ she was whining in her head.

Patch's face was taut and dark with arousal. His hands held her hips in place, while he brushed his miracle erection against her core. "Want it?" he whispered against her skin as he placed a kiss on her side.

"Mhm," Nora whimpered, practically shaking with need. "Please."

He dipped it in a little further, and she squealed and writhed under him, trying to push him deeper. "Please, what?"

"Please fuck me, Patch?" She opened one eye to see if those were the correct words.

He had a smirk on his tan face, his dark hair slicked back and dripping with warm water. The same water flowed over his tensed muscles, dripped off of his rather impressive erection. Nora could see from the corner of her eye that her underwear had settled next to her head.

His eyes were chunks of coal, lit and burning into her when he huskily said, "That works too, Angel."

Without a warning, his not-so-small member was buried as far as he could get it. Nora yelped, a strangled cry of pleasure and pain. She clawed at his chest, and he grabbed her hands and kissed the palms, then her fingertips.

Blood swirled towards the drain. "Ow," she gasped quietly.

_So sorry, Angel._

She glanced at him. He was beautiful, lust and worry making him dark. He watched her, face slack and mouth parted.

_The things I want to do to you, Nora._

She shivered. The water was getting colder now, but she didn't mind. That wasn't why she had shivered.

"Do them," she moaned.

Slowly, he pumped in and out of her. She was losing herself to the feeling. Absently, she wondered if he could feel anything. He groaned and whimpered with her, and she wondered if he was sifting through her head and pulling out the thoughts and feelings he needed to sustain himself.

Awkwardly, he flipped her over. They slid around the wet tub a bit, but he positioned her on her hands and knees, one leg propped against the side of the tub.

He sunk into her again, slowly and tenderly this time. He peppered her spine with kisses, caressed her hips, and it felt so unbelievably good. She pressed back against him, wanting to swallow his whole body. She filled to bursting with love and desire for all of him, every bit. "Oh, God," she grated.

"Let's hope he isn't listening right now."

But Nora was the one not listening. He was hitting her in just the right spot, so she flung herself back on him as fast as she could. She braced herself with one hand on the tile just above the water faucet and the other in the corner of the tub.

The warmth was back, cascading over her, making her twitch and collapse. Her cries came louder and louder until Patch put a firm hand over her mouth. She felt him in her head, dissecting everything she felt. _Angel, Angel, Angel,_ he was projecting to her. She could feel his love, his adoration, and that magnified the waves of orgasm tenfold.

Her body went lax against the ceramic, the side of her face in a pool of cold water. She felt his erection pop out of her, and then felt him lay beside her. Her eyes were closed, but she felt him watching her. He brushed wet hair away from her face.

_I love you,_ he told her.

A different kind of warmth spread through her chest and her stomach filled with fluttering bugs. "I—"

There was a knock at the door, scaring her. Nora's head popped up.

A white-faced Vee was staring in through the half-closed curtain, cell phone in hand. "Um, um," she stuttered. "Your mom called. She wanted to talk to you before she leaves tomorrow. I told her you were covered in your own shit and had to take a really long, really loud shower."

Nora smacked her face, and Patch burst out in laughter. "Oh. My. God," mumbled Nora.

"Sooo," Vee continued, "did you guys just—"

"Yes," conceded Patch.

"Well, what was it—"

"Wonderful," sighed Nora.

Vee squealed long and loud, her eyes getting inhumanly large. "Oh em gee, I totally have to tell Rixon that you guys just did it in his shower."

"Vee!" Nora complained. "Wait—"

She had already bounded off, her blonde curls bouncing behind her.

"Nora, are you okay?" Patch's face morphed from euphoria to fear.

She looked down. Blood seeped from her stab wound, leaking through the stitches there.

"Crap," she said.

_!_

Cold shower, anyone?

Maybe not.


	7. Chapter Seven

"If I were a man I'd make my move,

If I were a blade I'd shave you smooth,

If I were a judge I'd break the law,

And if I were from Paris…

If I were from paris,

I would say Oo la la, la la la la la."

-Grace Potter, Paris

_!_

_Borrowed Time_

_!_

"What did ye do? Put it in the wrong hole? She's spewin' like a keg!"

Patch shot Rixon a sharp look, his face pinched with heavy thoughts. Nora thought she recognized a twinge of embarrassment there too.

"Gah!" She gasped, cringing as the Irishman dabbed at her leaking wound with an alcohol-soaked swab of cotton. It came away red with her blood.

"Will ye refrain from strenuous activity from now on?" Rixon asked, giving her a good poke in the swollen skin just below the wound on her side.

Nora hissed, poking her bottom lip out. "Ow! Fine."

"Hold this on it," he said, handing her a dish towel.

Nora pressed her head back against the cushions of the couch. She didn't feel good, not at all. Her insides were like jell-o, squiggly and jittery. Her body felt like it weighed ten tons. She was hot, but her sweat was cold, making her shiver.

"Does anyone know where my pills are?" she whispered, closing her heavy eyes.

"I put them in my purse, babe. Need some?"

"Yeah. Losing blood isn't exactly healthy for someone that already lacks a stable amount of iron," Nora joked weakly.

Vee reached behind her and grabbed her bag off the coffee table. Nora could already hear the clacking of her iron pills against the plastic bottle and it was a big relief that her friend had remembered them. She felt terrible. Vee popped a pill out and dropped it into Nora's mouth. She swallowed it without water.

There was a faint vibrating noise and the cell phone in Patch's hands lit up. Dejectedly, Nora wondered if it was Marcie. In fact, she knew that it was. Probably spouting all manner of ill-will towards her, trying to convince him to come over and cozy up in her king-sized canopy bed.

Nora scowled and turned her back to them. Besides, she already felt like her stomach was a caged animal just dying to get out.

"Feeling alright, Angel?" he asked.

"Fine, thanks," she spat, imbuing just a bit more venom in the two words than she had meant to.

_!_

I am SO sorry. This is all I've written, and I felt like you guys deserved something. A lot has happened since the last chapter.

I moved into my first apartment on Thanksgiving. I got my first ferret, as well. Her name is Bon Bon, and she's precious. Three of my friends from high school died before Christmas, also. Respectively, from alcohol poisoning, a car accident, and the third was hit by a drunk driver.

This fic is officially on HIATUS. I will tell you why, and I hope you will forgive me! I've recently finished my first full length novel. I'm on an endeavor to become a published author, and believe it or not, it's a full time job. So I've switched from writing fics to rewriting my 60,000 words until it is perfect. Thank you to all who reviewed and favorited. I love it.

And last but not least, I implore that you read Brightly Woven by Alexandra Bracken and also Julie Kagawa's Iron Fey series. LOVE!

Happy writing and hopefully you'll be hearing from me again soon!


End file.
